Biblical Latin: How to Read the Vulgate as a Learner

The Vulgate, Jerome's Latin Bible, is the easiest large body of real Latin there is: short sentences, few words, endless repetition, and a story you may already know. Here are Genesis 1:1-5 and John 1:1-5, word by word, with the grammar in colour.

The text is the Clementine Vulgate (1592), the Church's standard edition and public domain; editions differ in small details (FAQ below). Printed editions write cælum; this page writes caelum. Translations are deliberately literal.

Why the Vulgate is easy

Jerome revised the Latin gospels against the Greek around 383-4 and translated most of the Old Testament from the Hebrew by about 405. It was made to be read aloud to congregations, and it stays close to plain speech.

The refrain Et vidit Deus quod esset bonum comes back word for word at Genesis 1:10, 12, 18, 21 and 25. No textbook repeats anything that ruthlessly. And the verb so often comes first because the Hebrew narrative puts it first.

Genesis 1:1-2: the endings do the work

In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram. Terra autem erat inanis et vacua, et tenebrae erant super faciem abyssi: et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. But the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was being carried over the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2)

Caelum is uncoloured on purpose: it is neuter, and a neuter noun's accusative looks the same as its nominative, so only the sense makes it an object.

Four smaller points:

• Autem is postpositive. It means but and never stands first, so it sits second: Terra autem erat, but the earth was.
• Inanis et vacua agree with terra. Inanis is a third-declension adjective and vacua a first-and-second, both feminine nominative: one phrase, both adjective families.
• Tenebrae is plural with a singular meaning, darkness. Latin hardly ever uses a singular for it, so the verb is plural: tenebrae erant.
• Ferebatur is imperfect passive: was being carried. English versions say moved or hovered, which hides the passive.

Two verses in, you have met four of the five declensions: terra (first), Deus (second), spiritus (fourth) and faciem (fifth).

Genesis 1:3: fiat lux

Dixitque Deus: Fiat lux. Et facta est lux.

And God said: Let there be light. And light was made. (Genesis 1:3)

Three pieces of grammar in eight words:

-que means and, glued to the end of the word it joins. When a word ending in -que is not in the dictionary, chop off the -que and look up the rest. Beware words that only look like it: itaque, therefore, and quisque, each, are words in their own right.

Fiat is a jussive subjunctive: the subjunctive on its own in a main clause, giving an order to someone who is not being spoken to. Fio serves as the passive of facio. Lux is nominative, not accusative: nothing here has an object.

Facta est is perfect passive. The participle agrees like an adjective, so it is feminine to match lux; and Latin builds this past tense with the present of sum, so facta est means was made, not is made:

More in the passive voice and the subjunctive.

Genesis 1:4-5: quod, and naming

Et vidit Deus lucem quod esset bona: et divisit lucem a tenebris. Appellavitque lucem Diem, et tenebras Noctem: factumque est vespere et mane, dies unus.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and he divided the light from the darkness. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night: and there was evening and morning, day one. (Genesis 1:4-5)

This is the sentence that matters. Cicero reports what someone saw with the accusative and infinitive; the Vulgate uses quod plus a subjunctive:

Esset is the imperfect subjunctive of sum, past because vidit is past; bona is feminine to match the light. This quod does the job of French and Spanish que and English that: Romance grammar being assembled out of Latin parts. The classical way is in indirect statement.

Three more things in verses 4-5:

• A tenebris is a plus the ablative of separation: from the darkness. A before a consonant, ab before a vowel or h.
• Appellavit takes two accusatives: lucem Diem, the light (what he named) Day (the name). English does the same: he called the light Day.
• Dies unus, day one, not the first day: the Hebrew says one, and Jerome kept it.

John 1:1-5: erat, not fuit

In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum. Omnia per ipsum facta sunt: et sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est. In ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum: et lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men: and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it. (John 1:1-5)

John opens with Genesis's first words and swaps one verb. Genesis has the perfect, one completed act; John has the imperfect, a state with no beginning marked:

Had John written fuit, the perfect of sum, the Word's existence would read as a finished episode. Things get made at a point (facta sunt, perfect passive) while the Word simply erat. Then verse 5 jumps to the present: in a passage set in the past, the light shines now.

Three things to catch:

• Et Deus erat Verbum has two nominatives. The Greek, which marks the subject with the article, makes Verbum the subject: and the Word was God.
• Quod factum est is quod the relative pronoun, which, not the that of Genesis 1:4. Only the clause tells you which.
• Comprehenderunt means both grasped (understood) and seized. The King James has comprehended it not; modern versions have did not overcome it. The Greek allows both.

Where the Vulgate parts company with Cicero

Renaissance humanists, measuring by Cicero, called it barbarous. Jerome worried about it himself: in his letter to Eustochium (Letter 22) he dreams he is accused before a judge, Ciceronianus es, non Christianus, you are a Ciceronian, not a Christian. His defence, in his letter on translation (Letter 57), is that in scripture even the order of the words is a mystery, so he would not smooth it.

That is why the text suits a learner: the Latin was left transparent to the languages underneath it. The humanists won the argument about style and lost the argument about readers.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Read Genesis 1, then John 1, then Mark, with the English in a parallel column. Save the Psalms and Paul for later.
2. Reread one chapter three times rather than three chapters once, aloud.
3. Then go back over the perfect tense and church Latin pronunciation.